A War to End All Wars
by Eamane Cyratan
Summary: The Final Battle is taking place, but Hermione is not her usual self. HGSS conflict. I've added in more to Chapter 2.
1. The Dogs of War

As usual, we all know who owns these characters. This is the only disclaimer for the entire story. 

** ** - Anything between the two pairs of stars is a memory. 

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Invisible transfers, long distance calls,   
Hollow laughter in marble halls   
Steps have been taken, a silent uproar   
Has unleashed the dogs of war   
You can't stop what has begun   
Signed, sealed, they deliver oblivion   
We all have a dark side, to say the least   
And dealing in death is the nature of the beast   
  
One world, it's a battleground   
One world, and we will smash it down   
One world ... One world 

The Dogs of War ~ Pink Floyd 

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The time had come. Tension had been building for the past five years since his corporeal return to the wizarding community. Today however would finally bring an end to all the pain and suffering. Today Voldemort was going to die. Hermione stood in the tower watching the gatherings and preparations of the D.A. and the Order unfold on the ground below. She knew she should be down there and would be down there soon, but for now she needed some privacy. 

Prepping for battle wasn't all about strategy and setting up camps. Sometimes it was about personal reflection and meditation to call on one's inner strengths. This is what she was doing now. She knew today was the day her parents would receive justice. Voldemort hadn't just killed them. Oh no, he had Lucius Malfoy torture them and then strung up on the edge of Hogwart's grounds like a crucifixion from the Muggleworld's Christian Bible. It had been horrible and she had been the first one to see them. 

**" Need to do well on my N.E.W.T.s," she thought as she took a walk across the grounds. "If I get prefect scores, I can do whatever my heart desires. I can become an auror or maybe I will take up Potions. Oh yeah, Snape would love that." She had continued to think. 

As she had been thinking to herself she had realized she had lost all perception of where she had been going. A shadow on the ground had finally penetrated her troublesome mind and as she looked up, her heart leapt into her throat and all she could do was gasp. There on two, what were they crosses? Were her parents and they were still alive.** 

Shaking her head she cleared it of the painful memory. It had been the bloodiest and ugliest of images for anyone to see. What came next was all a blur, but what she did remember was Professor Snape appearing out of nowhere. He had been absolutely furious. Her parents had immediately disappeared from her view and he had had to practically carry her back to school as she had been so overcome with grief. It was the last time anyone saw any emotion from her again. 

Now as she watched her friends gather, the barrier that had so carefully held in those emotions was let down. Wrapped around her now was rage and anger so strong that if it could be seen it would have been blue the hottest and most lethal temperatures of fire. However, this rage and anger wasn't uncontrollable, oh no, it was cool and calculating and aimed at two people, Lucius Malfoy and Voldemort. She knew she would never have the chance to face Voldemort, that was Harry's job, but by Merlin Lucius Malfoy was going down by her hand and hers alone. 

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Harry was looking down at a table with the Marauders Map on it trying to map out some last minute what-if plans when a shadow fell across the table. He looked up and saw Severus Snape looking back at him with a frown on his face. Wondering what was on his mind Harry asked, 

"Can I help you?" 

"How did you get that thing from my quarters Mr. Potter?" Snape sneared. 

"Well if you must know I did with, Accio Marauder's Map," he replied with dripping sarcasm. 

Severus sighed at the Boy-who continually-was-a-pain-in-his-ass. He didn't need to start a fight just before a war. So instead he changed the subject. 

"Would you happen to know where Miss Granger is? She's the only other person I find remotely competent to help me hand out the potions." He stated. 

"Well this is new ," Harry thought, "eh, who needs to get hostile with him when I have to face down Voldemort soon ." His scar was a perfect reminder of his date with destiny as it was already leading up to a dull burning sensation 

"She's in the tower he replied, but I wouldn't go up there. Whatever she has kept locked inside of her all these years is coming out today. I can feel it. She'll probably be more dangerous and lethal than Malfoy himself." He replied. 

The idea of Hermione unleashing her emotions bugged Severus. He nodded to Harry who was again looking at the map and left without a sound. He started back to the castle and was almost at the door when he broke into a full out run for the tower. He couldn't explain it but if Hermione used her rage in today's fight, odds were she wasn't going to be able to come out of that rage after the battle was over. 

He ran up the stairs two at a time, jumped twice to avoid being caught on a moving staircase and petrified Peeves in order to avoid delay from the annoying, antic pulling ghost. At this point he was running so fast that by the time he screeched to a halt inside the tower's doorway he was gasping for air. When he finally calmed down to look at her, his worst fear was confirmed. He was too late. 

Back to him, her body's stance was so rigid it looked like a statue. Slowly she turned to him and he gasped as he looked in her eyes. They were as black and as void as a black hole. 

"Hello, Snape." 


	2. In the End

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Things aren't the way they were before   
You wouldn't even recognize me anymore   
Not that you knew me back then   
But it all comes back to me   
In the end   
You kept everything inside and even though I tried / it all fell apart   
What it meant to me / will eventually / be a memory / of a time when I   
I tried so hard 

In the End ~ Linkin Park 

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"Oh Shit." 

It was the only thing that entered Severus's mind when he saw her eyes. She was gone into that world in which he had tried so hard to keep the students of Hogwarts away from, where he himself had managed to crawl out of after making the horrific mistake of taking the dark mark. The one person who he had never had to worry about being consumed by the dark side had in the end embraced it and it broke his heart. 

"Why?" he managed to croak out still to stunned and saddened to really speak. 

"Because it is necessary." Hermione replied. "For four years I have waited for my chance. Four years in which I have kept it silent, like a lion that stalks its prey, blends into its surroundings and slowly, very slowly inches its way near its target until finally it is close enough to strike. I have waited for that precise moment and now it has come. My time to strike!" 

The quiet voice in which she spoke in up until her declaration of striking had been so eerie that he could visualize everything she said like a movie flashing before his eyes. He looked at her and wondered if it was at all possible to bring her back. 

"Its not the way Hermione," he stated. 

"Oh! On a first name basis are we?" She replied with a laugh so brittle it made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. 

"For the longest time, it has been Miss Granger, the insufferable Gyffindor know-it-all. You ridiculed me and belittled me all through my stay here, never once showing any emotion. And now when I have finally,…FINALLY have gotten over what you used to term as a weakness, YOU tell ME that I'M WRONG! Guess what SNAPE! It is YOU WHO ARE WRONG! YOUR YEARS AT HOGWARTS HAVE MADE YOU WEAK! EMOTIONS ONLY HINDER YOUR ABILITIES THEY DO NOT ENHANCE THEM! THERE IS ONLY ONE EMOTION WORTH HAVING….AND THAT…IS……HATE!" She raged. 

"For a know-it-all you sure haven't got your facts straight this time, Hermione," Severus stated sadly. "This war we have been fighting, the one your parents are victims of is because of the hatred against all those not of pure blood. Hatred matching hatred does not help matters it only worsens them. Your friends," he stressed, "are down there preparing to fight and die because one person's hate was allowed to spread and breed amongst our world." 

In a moment of brilliance, or maybe stupidity, Severus decided to push the proverbial button. "You of all people should know that. You were raised in a muggleworld. You know its history. Your parents certainly knew it and because of it raised you up to be compassionate and understanding. This thing you have become is not what they would have wanted and if they were still alive today they would be sadly disappointed." 

"CRUCIO!" She yelled. 

"Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit…..FUCK this kills!" he screamed in his mind as he fell to the floor trying hard not to let the pain overtake him. Voldemort's curses had hurt, but never like this. Her rage was so out of control that it only empowered the curse. 

Watching him try to keep from screaming was beginning to tug at Hermione's heart. In order to keep herself from feeling any slight remorse, she looked away and took a deep breath to steel herself from his pain. 

" I will not be weak. This is the right thing to do ," she thought. 

Allowing the curse to finally stop, Hermione, back in "control" stood over him and for a few moments looked down at him dispassionately before finally bending down to whisper in his ear. "If I were you," she said slowly and quietly, "I would make sure I was nowhere near me on the battlefield. After all you wouldn't want me to mistake you for a death-eater." 

She stood up and calmly walked to the door, but before she left she spoke one last time her voice as cold as ice, 

"By the way, don't you ever mention my parents to me again. After all, if you were half the spy you and the rest of this community claims you are my parents would still be alive and none of this would have happened." 

And with that she walked out the door. 

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Severus lay stretched out on the floor, wondering how he could still be alive. He mentally checked to see if all his body parts were still there and functioning. 

" Toes: check, legs: check, Arms: check, fingers: check. Head: Obvious…." He thought. " I should really get up and go kill her ," he continued to think, " She damn well could have killed me and she above all people should know that, Goddammit! " 

He sat up and slowly rotated his shoulders and rolled his head in an effort to loosen the kinks up. He was old, not age wise; he was only 40, but his body had been put through too much stress and the fact that Hermione knew all this and still pulled a Cruciatus on him infuriated him beyond belief. Then he sighed as her last words registered in his mind. She was right about that of course. It was his fault that her parents died. Voldemort had put the curse on him too many times to count that night. He had barely managed, in fact, to make it back to Hogwart's. According to Dumbledore, it was Hermione who had found him near dead in a hallway near his quarters while she was doing rounds that night for McGonagall who had gotten tied up in the infirmary with a sick student. He had been out for days and hadn't been able to tell anyone of Voldemort's plans until it was too late. His weakness had killed her parents. It was the last time he had heeded Voldemort's call. 

** "Hello, old friend." Said the head of Lucius Malfoy in Severus's fireplace. "Voldemort has put a price on your head for abandoning him." 

"Lucius, you would stop heeding the master's call if you were always the one receiving the Cruciatus curse every time you attended," replied Severus darkly as he slowly put down the book he had been reading and face the fire. 

"Ah, this is all well and true, Sev, but my loyalties are to my Lord and Master and therefore if I am to receive his punishment then so be it," commented Lucius smugly. He knew Voldemort would never punish him so harshly because he was his most loyal subject. Severus's problem was his unwillingness to let Voldemort see all that was going on in his mind and therefore it constantly left Him in doubt, which therefore brought around Severus's punishments. 

"For now you are spared," replied Severus, "But as for me, I cannot go back. My body will not take it and I will die. Then who will He have inside Hogwarts to spy for Him? No, this is the best way. You will gain favor with Him by taking my messages to him, this way He will know that I am still loyal." ** 

"Lucius had liked that plan immensely," he thought bitterly. Dumbledore had consented to it and that's how it had been ever since. However, his body still needed more time to heel and Hermione's curse could have killed him. 

"Best warn, Potter," he thought with a grimace. " This is going to go over sooo well. All I can do is watch out for her and try to help her. Otherwise she will be dead like her parents and it will be my fault for that as well ." 

He slowly rose and sighed, feeling that no matter what he did today, Hermione's well being had to be his first priority. He left the room wondering why that was so. 


End file.
